


Dhacian

by Blurble



Series: Ryler's story [1]
Category: Skyborn (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 08:40:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5327768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blurble/pseuds/Blurble





	1. New Stormrook

The entrance hall of skyborn academy was, objectively speaking, quite large. It was seven stories tall, with entrances from top to bottom  
through which skyborn cadets, skyborn professors, skyborn researchers, and, well, everyone (everyone who counted, i.e. had proper full-blood wings-- the lesser species were not allowed anywhere near the academy) flew in and out in a complex dance of air traffic. Down on the floor was no better, as newly arrived students wheeled oversize luggage  
carts determinedly towards some unseen destination.  
  
It was objectively speaking  _large_ , but to the young skyborn standing just inside the entrance it was monstrously enormous, gargantuan, many times the size of any building Ryler Dhacian had ever seen before, in all fourteen years of his life. He had no luggage cart-- just one piece of baggage, an old and rather frayed leather suitcase whose handle he was gripping on to so tightly his knuckles had gone white.  
  
He was supposed to go to the Triumph hallway. He had no idea where that was, but suspected it was probably all the way on the other side of the hall. In which case he would have to go through the roiling mass of people around him, and if so he was going to get crushed.  
  
Even standing here, on the edge, he had already been bumped into very painfully by three-- three!-- luggage trolleys. Stacked with four oversize suitcases or more, they did not give very clear visibility to the panting students pushing them. And that was just the edge of the room. Towards the center the scene disintegrated into sheer chaos.  
  
Ryler breathed in deeply, closing his eyes, trying to gather his nerves and courage. He was going to have to make a mad dash for it, that was all. He opened his eyes and found that his legs had not  
moved. In fact, they appeared to rapidly be turning into jelly underneath him.  
  
Something bumped into him, for the fourth time that day. But it wasn't a luggage cart, it was another skyborn, who looked to be about his  
age. She had blond hair, braided neatly around her head, and a resolute, determined, and above all  _busy_ expression.  
  
"I'm sorry!" she said hurriedly, turning to continue on her way-- and then she paused, and turned back to look him over.  
  
"You new here?" She asked.  
  
"Y-Yes," he said. "I'm-- supposed to be starting as a new c-cadet," he said, and internally cursed himself for the pathetic stutter. He'd never been good with new people.  
  
"You're not from New Stormrook, are you?" She said, standing there opposite him, oblivious to the traffic swirling around them.  
  
"No," he said, wondering how she could tell. Was it that obvious?  
  
As if she could read his mind, she smiled and said, "You had that shell-shocked look that newcomers get when they first see the Entrance  
Hall. Don't worry, after a while it's not that bad. Where do you need to get to?"  
  
"Um. Triumph hallway," he said.  
  
Her face lit up, making it even more attractive than it already was.  
"Triumph! Oh, that's fun, it's cross-girding from my hallway. Come on, then, I'll show you where to go," and saying that, she pried the suitcase from his fingers and carried it off, leaving Ryler no choice but to follow her as she expertly wove her way through the room.  
  
A few minutes later, panting, bruised, but otherwise only slightly the worse for wear, they arrived in the Triumph hallway, two turns off  
from the main hall. The entrance to the hallway was all guilded gold, a carved depiction of Skyborn soldiers beating humans in battle (a  
small explanatory plaque on the door explained that the battle depicted was the Ralley of New Denquist). Inside, the hallway was  
painted deep blue, white, and gold, the colors of New Stormrook.  
  
The hallway was a slight improvement on the chaos outside, but it was crammed from end to end with newly arrived cadets and, of course, their suitcases. Several people were complaining loudly about problems with their keys, and somebody's luggage had somehow come open and strewn clothing and toiletries all over the floor, causing several  
others to trip and curse loudly.  
  
"Which one's your room?" the girl asked Ryler, as they surveyed the scene before them.  
  
"7... 7A.." He said, as he fumbled open the paper he'd been carrying with him near non-stop since he'd received it in the mail a month previous.  
  
She made a face. "That's pretty much the other end of the hallway..."  
  
And then, with a shrug- "Oh well. Follow me!" she said, and walked onwards.  
  
"Excuse me, coming through, excuse me," she said, wielding his bag in front of her like a shield. The crowd of students seemed to part in front of her. Many of the students seemed to already know her-- they laughed and greeted her as she passed by. Ryler, following behind, felt overwhelmed and embarrassed.  
  
The door to 7A was already open, and a pile of suitcases next to the bed in the far corner of the room made it clear that his roommate had already arrived, although at the moment the room was unoccupied. The girl settled herself down onto the other bed, as yet bare and unmade, and placed Ryler's suitcase down next to her.  
  
"That should do it," she said, and stretched her arms above her head with a yawn. "I need to get back to the office, but you should probably start unpacking-- speaking of which, where is the rest of your luggage?"  
  
Ryler flushed. "There is no 'rest'," he said. "That's all I brought."  
  
"Really?" she said. "You pack really light, then." She sounded, oddly enough, a little impressed.  
  
"Well, in that case," she continued, "I could probably stay and help you unpack."  
  
"Don't you need to go to the office?" he said, confused.  
  
"Well, I was going to offer to help-- they're always drowning in paperwork this time of year-- but it's going to be lunch in six minutes anyway, so it's not like by the time I got there I'd be much help anyway. And you'll probably need help getting to the lunchroom, so I might as well stay."  
  
“Oh,” he said. “Thank you.”  
  
There was a moment of silence, and then he said, hesitantly—  
  
“I’m sorry, but— but could you just tell me what your name is?”  
  
She began to laugh, as he flushed yet again, bewildered.  
  
“Alda,” she said at last. “Alda Kims. I’m sorry for not introducing myself properly, it’s not the sort of slip-up I’d usually make. And if you don’t mind, what is your name?”  
  
“Ryler,” he said. “Rhyler Dhacian.”  
  
“Nice to meet you, Rhyler Dhacian,” she said.  
  
“Nice to meet you too,” he said, completely heartfelt.  
  
\----------  
  
"The Duo," people called them. Ryler and Alda, Alda and Ryler...  
  
People started slurring their names together, AldandRyler, like the two of them were just two halves of the same person.  
  
Since the first month of school they topped every score board, every status sheet. Ryler was the more magically gifted, but it was Alda who  
excelled in the battlefield. It wasn't just that she was talented. It was that she was terrifying-- driven, single-minded, and so fast your eye could barely follow her.  
  
In theory they could have been rivals, but instead they were friends, close friends. Ryler had never been very extroverted, and once he started topping the charts he found it even harder to distinguish  
between "potential friends" and "people who just wanted to use his help to get better grades". Overwhelmed by the attention, he'd retreated into an even quieter, shyer version of himself-- except  
around Alda. And Alda was popular and well-liked by everyone, but when you're friends with everyone you don't have much opportunity to be close to anyone-- Ryler was the exception.  
  
They studied together and they practiced together and they ate together and they stayed up late at night in the hallway adjoining the boys and girls dormitories talking to eachother, arguing about  
politics  _(Alda was a hard-line Imperialist, who thought anyone guilty of harboring a half-breed should be hanged. Ryler, with his "squeamish non-city outlook", as Alda put it, was more inclined to thinking justice should be tempered with compassion)_  or historical interpretations  _(Alda thought there were clear signs of censorship  
in coverage of the Hurstley campaign, and she was obsessed with trying to figure out what had actually happened, whereas Ryler didn't really  
see why she cared when the real point of studying the campain was grasping Legaulie's brilliant usage of the pincer technique)_ or the best way to disarm an opponent wielding a hammer  _(Alda thought relying on magic was for sissies. Ryler thought it was more practical, and efficient)._  
  
On nights when they stayed up particularly late the talk sometimes tended towards the personal. Ryler had been roomed with someone else from old Stormrook, but his roommate, from an old and wealthy noble family, considered Ryler beneath his notice. They hadn't exchanged more than two sentences since the start of the year.  
  
"A snotty, derelict antique," Alda called him. "He's just jealous that you're so much better than him. Relics like him should just stay in Old Stormrook."  
  
"That's what I like about New Stormrook," Ryler said, "It's a system based on merit. If you're good enough and you try hard enough, you'll  
make it to the top, no matter where you come from."  
  
"Yeah," Alda said, "the Empress even encourages people from non-standard backgrounds to join the Academy." Her voice softened, as it always did when she mentioned the Empress.  
  
Over their months in school Ryler had gradually pieced together bits and pieces of Alda's story. She'd been orphaned very young-- both her  
parents had been killed by a renegade half-breed. But the school head, a younger sister of the empress herself, had taken her in and raised  
her. It was no wonder Alda was so absurdly talented at fighting-- she'd been practicing it since she was three. As for discipline-- well, unquestioning obedience to military orders was the bread and butter of her upbringing. She had it engrained into her bones.  
  
Ryler admired that about her. Her principles, her self-control. When Alda stepped onto a practice field her opponent knew she'd have no mercy--- whereas Ryler, more often than not, would lose points for being "too soft" when an opportunity for a killing strike arose. And people liked that Alda never went easy on them, always respected their abilities, they admired her the way they never would Ryler, not even if he got highest scores in everything.  
  
It was the sort of thing that could have made him jealous, if he hadn't know that he was the person Alda trusted most, the only one she'd ever told about her one memory of her mother, singing a lullaby whose words and tune Alda had been searching for for years, with no success.  
  
He was the only one privy to her weaknesses, her secrets. "I never cry," she told him, once. "I can't. I think I might have been a crybaby as a toddler-- I think I remember that-- but ever since my parents died, I... It's like a-- a physiological disability, I mean, even when I cut onions my eyes sting and sting but they just-- my tear ducts are blocked, I think, or something."  
  
"If you were fighting someone and they threw sand into your eyes, you'd be in trouble," he said, for lack of a better response.  
  
"If I was fighting someone..." she said, musing. Then smirked. "I'd probably cut his arms off, if someone tried to do that to me."  
  
There wasn't really much to say to that, so the conversation proceeded to an animated discussion of how to fight with one's arms cut off.  
\---  
  
When the news came that his father died Ryler retreated to his room to cry.  
  
But his roommate was there. His roommate had never bothered hiding his dislike for Ryler and Ryler wasn't willing to have to deal with him now.  
  
He wandered the halls without really thinking clearly. Somehow or other he found himself in Alda's room.   
  
"What happened?" she said, as soon as she opened the door.  
  
"My--" he said, and his shoulders began to shake. "My father--"  
  
"Oh." She said. "Oh."  
  
She hugged him, tightly. He got snot and tears all over her shirt but she didn't let go.  
  
Later, they sat up together and he talked about his father, talked and talked and talked.  
  
Later, he realized it was the first time she hugged him.  
  
\---  
  
"I do not think the girl means any harm," the school head protested. She was careful to keep her voice humble, reverential. She did not want to upset her empress.  
  
The empress's eyes narrowed. "She is too curious. It will need to be dealt with. But at least she is compliant, as far as you can tell. The boy..."  
  
"He's not used to blood," the school head said.  
  
"Stop making excuses for your failures," the empress snapped. "If he can't obey orders he is useless and a traitor."  
  
"He has a strong sense for magic-- he could be a scholar--"  
  
"If he cannot kill when commanded to do so, he has no right to belong to the Empress."  
  
"Still, it is a waste," the school head said.  
  
"Indeed," The Empress smiled. It was a terrible smile, all cruel white teeth and cold eyes. "He deserves a chance, don't you think?"  
  
\---  
  
Ryler was having difficulty deciding what to buy.  
  
There were all sorts of gifts you were supposed to be able to buy for a girl. Flowers. Jewelry. Cute stuffed animals.  
  
Trying to imagine a combination of Alda and any of those items caused small painful implosions in Ryler's brain.  
  
No, it would have to be something a little less... pink.  
  
Something practical, maybe.  
  
Except how did you make something practical into a romantic gift?  
  
"Here, have this screwdriver, you never know when one of those will come in handy, and also I like you. Like, _like_  like you."  
  
It was kind of ridiculous. He tried imagining Alda's reaction.  
  
Forget the screwdriver for a moment.  
  
"Hey, Alda, I'm so happy we're teammates for the final exam, especially because I think you're the most amazing person I've ever met and I'm in love with you."  
  
No, that was coming on way too strong.  
  
"So, um, after we pass-- wanna go out with me?" He tried to imagine saying it casually, leaning against a wall.  
  
So he wouldn't fall over if she said yes.  
  
He crammed his face into his hands and gave a little moan. It was hopeless.  
  
But what could he get her, at least? Something meaningful. Something suited to her.  
  
 _Beautiful and deadly_  
  
...He stared at the wall for a moment and began to smile.  
  
\----  
  
"Thirty-six thousand," the shopkeeper said, firmly, after a half hour of haggling. His jaw was set. Ryler could tell, with a sinking despair, that it wasn't going to get any lower than that.  
  
He looked the blade over longingly. Double-edged, evenly balanced, and gorgeous. It was perfect. Utterly perfect.  
  
But thirty-six thousand was his budget, for  _six months_. And Ryler lived on a very tight budget by necessity. It wasn't like there was anything he could cut. It was food and school supplies, pretty much.  
  
He couldn't do it. Couldn't buy it. Couldn't... couldn't afford it. As always.  
  
It was okay. Alda wasn't the type to care. She'd be happy, she'd be happy with a cheaper present, one he could actually manage to buy her. She'd never have to know, how he'd gotten this ridiculous idea into his head, to buy her this...  
  
this perfect, perfect sword--  
  
He closed his eyes, breathed in deeply.  
  
Thirty-six thousand.  
  
He'd have to live on nothing but porridge. For two years.  
  
His hand clenched around his moneyskin, involuntarily.  
  
It was painful just taking the bills out, feeling them between his fingers, soft and defenseless.  
  
"Done," he said, placing them down on the counter like they burned, and he walked out of the store more impoverished than he'd been his entire life, but walking on air.  
  
\---  
  
They staggered into the final room, panting and out of breath. All the color-locks had been cleared. They were done.   
  
He looked around and realized, with sudden joy, that they were the first ones there. "We're first!" he said.  
  
"We passed!" she said, grinning at him.  
  
"Congratulations," the Empress said. "You've made it all the way here."  
  
Alda flushed. Ryler grinned wider, awash in adrenaline and relief.  
  
"There is only one more test," The empress said, softly.  
  
Alda stiffened, her back straight, chin up. Standing to attention.  
  
"What- what do you mean?" Ryler said. "We passed all the guards--"  
  
"The most important trait in a skyborn soldier is loyalty," the empress said. "You have proven your prowess, but now you must prove this as well."  
  
Her eyes narrowed. "I command each of you to kill your partner," she said.  
  
They both gasped.   
  
Well, Ryler gasped. Alda gave-- a sharp intake of breath, but she also whirled-- to face him, taut, circling.  
  
There was fear in her eyes.  
  
"Alda--" Ryler said, stumbling. "Alda I can't-- I--"   
  
His staff had clattered to the floor, by his side. He made no move to pick it up, his throat dry.  
  
"Orders are orders," she said, voice high-pitched, hysterical. Then she lunged for him and--  
  
It would have been nice, maybe, if at that point it all went black.  
  
It didn't.  
  
The weapon he himself had bought her tore into him and it took only fractions of a moment for the pain signals to reach his brain, but the blood welling up in his throat kept him from screaming, and somehow more than the searing fire in his chest-- which felt, somehow, miles away-- he felt vividly the warm blood, the salt of it, his head spinning for lack of air, and he could see the blood spattered across her face, and she ripped her arm back and he fell and he fell--  
  
and then, only then, there was blackness. 


	2. Old Stormrook

When he woke up there was someone holding his hand.  
  
 _Alda_ , he thought. His eyes filled with tears just at the thought but it was okay because she was here and he had just woken up from a very terrible nightmare and he was so, so relieved.  
  
"You have been a very bad boy," said the voice by his bed, and it wasn't Alda's voice at all.  
  
His eyes snapped open.  
  
The Empress was holding his hand--  
The Empress was--  
The--  
  
And at that exact same moment a massive, overwhelming, indescribable pain finally managed to overcome the censors in his brain and his entire body was screaming and he was screaming and he blacked out again.  
  
\---  
  
When he woke up again the Empress was gone, and he was incredibly thirsty and wanted a drink of water. The nurse said he couldn't and he didn't understand until he followed the line of her gaze with his hand and felt the bandages wrapped around his chest.  
  
There was a giant hole in him and anything he put in would just come right out again or at least that's what he thought, fuzzily, but anyway he was already slipping back into unconsciousness and Empress, unconsciousness was just wonderful.  
  
\---  
  
Consciousness sucked.  
  
There were a lot of tubes going in and out of him keeping him alive and then there were a lot of healers throwing nauseating healing spells at him (literally nauseating-- the painkillers kept the horrible fiery stabby pain down to a barely survivable minimum and yet all those painkiller seemed to do nothing for the constant greenish-colored dizzy swirly gross feeling the over-dosage of healing spells was giving him).  
  
But the worst thing about consciousness was, well, being conscious. They were dialing down the painkillers and the healing spells as his recovery progressed and what that meant, other than being in constant pain but also being increasingly less and less likely to die any minute, was that he could  _think_.  
  
And there was absolutely nothing he wanted to do less.  
  
The Empress came back, once he started being conscious for more than five minutes at a stretch. The Empress sat by his bed and spoke to him, in a calm sweet voice.  
  
She told him that he had been a bad disobedient boy but that she loved him, that she would even forgive him, maybe, if.  
  
When she told him he'd been bad the pain always somehow increased to the point that it would bring tears to his eyes, and lately just when she said he'd been bad that was enough even without the pain to make him tear up.  
  
When she told him she would still love him, if only he was good, he'd feel a lightness, a sort of ecstasy, wash over him. For those moments and those moments only he didn't mind being conscious. He'd grasp at the happy feeling, that the Empress--  
  
The Empress--  
  
The empress would forgive him and love him again and everything was okay--  
  
and then feeling would leave and he'd be left gasping with the need for it, and with the pain, and with the consciousness.  
  
The consciousness was Alda.   
  
It was always Alda.  
  
Nobody spoke to him about her. So he never spoke about her either, not to himself, not even in his thoughts, he blanked her out, she didn't exist and everything in the world was Alda and the pain.  
  
\---  
  
It took six months until he could walk around freely again, and a week more than that before he was officially called before the Empress.  
  
"I am giving you a second chance," she said, and his heart leapt into his throat. "I am sending you to Old Stormrook".  
  
"Yes, your majesty," he said, awash with the glow of The Empress--  
  
The Empress--  
  
sending him on a mission, trusting him,  _him_ , undeserving worm. The Empress giving him a second chance!  
  
Only later, when he was packing and discovered that he was shaking, shaking without realizing it, did he suddenly remember what it meant to be assigned to Old Stormrook.  
  
\---  
  
But it was different.  
  
It was different this time.  
  
As the airship landed in the familiar--   
  
 _too-familiar_  
  
in the airdocks that he hadn't seen in years, he reminded himself of that over and over.  
  
He wasn't a poor boy with one parent of not nearly noble enough birth. He wasn't helpless. He wasn't a nobody.  
  
He was Soldier Dhacian and one of the Empress's own. And if you belonged to the Empress your class was unimportant. It was skill that mattered, and Ryler--  
  
Dhacian--  
  
and Dhacian had plenty of skill.  
  
He felt himself straighten, stiffen proudly within his uniform.  
  
Then he slumped.   
  
He wasn't a soldier, he was a soldier-on-probation. And he was being sent here to prove that he was worthy of the shorter title.   
  
Still.  
  
Just the fact that he was being considered for the title made him better than every one of these backwards, backwater yokels.  
  
He forced himself to believe that, believe that utterly, so that when the Immigration and Procedural Officer-- wearing the markings of a noble third line-- asked for his papers he didn't bow to the waist like his entire childhood had trained him to do.  
  
Instead he nodded stiffly. Respect for an equal or almost-equal.   
  
"Soldier Dhacian?" The official said. "No family name?"  
  
"I belong to the Empress," Dhacian said. On Old Stormrook family names were the first, second, and third steps in determining how you were treated. But he was above that now.  
  
(He felt no need to correct the soldier's assumption that Dhacian was his first name. He had intended for the error to occur)  
  
The official smirked. "Always so patriotic, you people."  
  
"I hope that statement wasn't meant to disparage patriotism," Dhacian said, meeting the man's gaze fixedly.  
  
The smirk wavered and then disappeared.  
  
Dhacian felt a flush of power fill him.  
  
He might be a soldier on probation but he had the Empress behind him and they knew it and they were afraid.  
  
He finished the remainder of the paperwork and let himself be directed to the police station.   
  
\---  
  
The policeman's body language radiated hostility.  
  
Dhacian wasn't feeling all that friendly to the man either. The man smelled of drink and was dressed like a slob. if this was the state of the police force then the Empress had been right to send him here to shape things up.  
  
With that in mind he allowed a drop of condescension to slip into his tone as he extended his arm. "Soldier Dhacian," he said. "I've been sent by the Empress. And you...?"  
  
"Commander Boyce Tiernan, although that will just be Commander to you."  
  
"I follow the rank of the Empress," Dhacian said.  
  
"Well then, you will be happy to know that you have been assigned to work under me, by your precious Empress,  _Dhacian_ ," he said.  
  
Dhacian felt his stomach drop to the vicinity of his toes.  
  
He wasn't expected to supervise this... useless slob. He was expected to be supervised by him. And the dismay and the shock of that had already registered on his face, he saw, as he saw a nasty smirk spread widely across the commander's face.  
  
"Your first duty," the commander said, "will be to polish my boots".  
  
\---  
  
He polished the boots three times before they met the commander's satisfaction.  
  
By that point, "seething" was too kind a word to describe how he felt.  
  
The man was an incompetent boor. And the sooner Dhacian got out of here, the better.   
  
He had not been expecting the Empress to assign him a superior. Nonetheless, his mission had not changed. The Empress must have had some reason to place him here initially, but the need to assert control over the increasingly insubordinate old stormrookian police force did not require him to stay.  
  
His brooding was interrupted by a tap on the shoulder.  
  
He turned to see a young skyborn in police garb-- a plain-looking woman who was smiling at him, reassuringly.  
  
"He can be pretty awful but you get used to it," she said. "I'm Minna Keata, I've worked here for ten years. You must be Soldier Dhacian."  
  
He returned her salute, which made her smile widen.   
  
"It's a pleasure to have you here," she said.   
  
He decided to smile back, and managed a small one. "Would be more of a pleasure on my part if I hadn't just wasted so much time polishing boots," he said.  
  
"Tiernan can't make you polishe shoes forever," she said. "He needs you on patrol."  
  
"Patrol?" he said.  
  
"We're short-staffed," she said. "Most of our district is slums so there's not much interest in giving us proper funding."  
  
"I see..." he said, hesitantly.  
  
"In fact I'm headed out on patrol right now," she said. "Come with me, I'll show you the ropes."  
  
\---  
  
Patrols were meant to be done in pairs, but Minna Keata's previous partner had retired several months ago. Dhacian was probably going to be assigned to her once he got an official assignment. She was from a low-ranking family and worked in the police force because it paid, but her dream had been to be a teacher. She had an on-and-off-again boyfriend and didn't expect to ever get officla approval to have children.  
  
All this and more Dhacian learned while on patrol with her. Patrolling made Minna nervous and she fought the nerves by talking, which was why losing her partner had been so frustrating. He had been mostly deaf in the last few years before his retirement but that just made him better suited to her constant babble.   
  
"I'm sorry," she said, after saying that. "am I overwhelming you?"  
  
Dhacian shook his head. After a paragraph or two he had succeeded in mostly tuning her out, while still paying just enough attention to remember anything useful she might say.  
  
Patrols used to be done very thoroughly but lately Tiernan had decided that it was wasteful to keep patrolling every area every day. He also decided that randomizing the patrols was too much of a bother. So now there was a schedule, and on each day of the week certain areas were patrolled.  
  
The stupidity of this method was galling, but Tiernan was right about one thing-- no one in Old Stormrook actually cared. No one in this district ranked higher than sub-sub-com-duke-- plenty of them had scandalously no rank at all--- and so it didn't really matter if any of them got robbed or stabbed. So thus far nothing had happened to raise scrutiny of the patrol system.  
  
Thus far.  
  
If there could just be once incident big enough to cause a fuss, Dhacian was certain he could get Tiernan the disgrace he deserved.  
  
He just needed to keep his eyes open.  
  
\---  
  
Opportunity came vastly faster than expected.  
  
It was the third day of the week which meant patrolling the Dinge Quarter.   
  
The Dinge quarter was, hands down, the worst, most miserable part of Old Stormrook. For one thing, it was located on the shores of Ol' Yellow.   
  
Ol' Yellow flowed from the leakage of the sweage treatment plant, and no, it was not named after its high content of gold.  
  
And it was there, curled up in the ragged crumple of a box, that Minna spotted it.  
  
She didn't realize what she had spotted.   
  
She simply said "There seems to be something somewhat wrong with that poor man's wings," in her sympathetic voice. But when Ryler had turned to look he realized that whatever was wrong was quite a good deal wronger than "somewhat".  
  
"Minna," he whispered, urgently. "We need to capture him."  
  
"But why would you need to capture him?" she said. Not in a whisper.  
  
"Shhh!" He hissed but it was too late. The-- thing-- began to take off in a shambling run.  
  
"After him!" Dhacian shouted, taking off. But the man had disappeared into a network of alleys.  
  
"We'll have to split up," Dhacian said. "Head left, I'll head right."  
  
Minna shook her head, wide-eyed.  
  
"I- I've never gone into the alleys alone!" she half-wailed.  
  
"well, you'll have to," Dhacian said. "Didn't you see that man? He was a half-blood!"  
  
Minna gasped.  
  
"A h-half blood? He couldn't be!" she said. "They don't-- that's illegal!"  
  
"Exactly," Dhacian said. "We can't let him get away."  
  
She glanced back at the shadowed entrance of the alleway into which the man had disappeared.  
  
"But I can't-- I'm s-scared," she managed to say.  
  
Dhacian glanced at her, frustrated. They were letting his chance get away.  
  
"I'll stay close by," he said. "If you need me just scream."  
  
She didn't seem particularly reassured by this but after he took a few steps into the alleyway she followed him, shivering.  
  
He turned right and didn't manage to get very far away when she screamed.  
  
He flew back to her as fast as he could.  
  
"He was here!" she said, frantically.  
  
"Here? Where?" he said, looking around.  
  
"He jumped at me! I was s-so scared!"  
  
"You let him get away?" Dhacian asked, sharply.  
  
"He might have killed me!" she wailed, and burst into full-blown sobs.  
  
The sun was beginning to set. It galled him to admit this, when his prey was this close, but they would have to head back, especially with Minna too hysterical to be anything but a burden.  
  
"We'll head back," he said.  
  
"But we can't!" she said, frantically. "We can't-- I'll have let a halfborn get away! What will Tiernan do to me?!"  
  
"It probably wasn't a halfblood anyway," he said. "I'm just being paranoid. Boredom from the patrol. Just don't say anything."  
  
She stared at him. "You're not going to report this?"  
  
He smiled at her. "You've been so nice to me since I got here," he said. "I don't want you to get into trouble."  
  
"Thank you," she said, starting to cry again.  
  
"Don't worry," he said, and helped her back to the station.  
  
\---  
  
when they got back, late, dirty, and exhausted, Tiernan made nasty comments at both of them and then sent Dhacian-- only Dhacian-- to scrub the toilets.  
  
Overwhelmed with the disappointment of his lost opportunity, Dhacian didn't think the day could possibly get any worse until he walked into the decrepit food hall to find the other officers playing a holovid.  
  
"What's this?" Dhacian said, casually, as he settled into his seat and reached for some food.  
  
"The Spring tournament from New Stormrook," Galen, one of the policemen told him. "Just got the rec today. Powers, isn't she stunning?"  
  
Dhacian looked to see what he was referring to and froze.  
  
It was Alda, Alda slicing her way through a battlefield, Alda Alda Alda.  
  
He looked back at his plate of food and fought the urge to vomit.  
  
"They say she's the best the Academy has ever had, she might be promoted to general soon, youngest ever-- What's wrong?" Dalen said, looking back at him.  
  
"Nothing." he said. "Not hungry."  
  
He staggered back from the table and stumbled into his room.  
  
\---  
  
He was trapped in Old Stormrook. Pathetic backwards excuse for a town, lost in delusions of its own former grandeur. He was trapped here. He was nothing here. He needed to get out and he needed to get out now.  
  
He grabbed his money and went to a store that sold lights (among other things). He bought the brightest portable he could get.  
  
From that point on he stopped returning straight to the station from patrols. Instead he waited till Minna left and winged it straight for the Dinge Quarter.  
  
He didn't tell Minna about this. As they had agreed, they hadn't mentioned what had happened on the patrol. Minna had seemed happy to forget.  
  
It took him three weeks before he found the creature. The halfborn's eyes were bloodshot and he drooled constantly. He also couldn't get out a coherent word and was clearly deranged.  
  
Dhacian did not take him to the station. He did  _not_  take him to Tiernan.  
  
Instead he brought him straight to the High Commisioner.  
  
\---  
  
  
The entire staff of the Fourth District police office was arrested and placed on trial. Tiernan was eventually exiled. Minna had a nervous breakdown.  
  
Dhacian, on the other hand, had been invited to the halfblood execution. It took place a week after the capture, by which point all his coworkers had already been jailed but none of them had been put on trial yet.  
  
They postponed the execution for a week because it was quite the gala event. Executions were rare and exciting events and everyone wanted to be able to enjoy it as much as possible.  
  
He sat in the seat of honor at the dinner and ate generously from the massive piles of delicious food passed his way.   
  
And then they brought the half-blood on to the stage, and apologized that they couldn't produce the parents as well-- genetic testing and a database check had confirmed that both mother and father were, unfortunately, already dead.  
  
The crowd booed.   
  
But they cheered when Dhacian ascended to the steps to the stage, ornate ceremonial knife in his hand.  
  
He was shaking but they couldn't see that from a distance.  
  
The halfblood, in chains, grimaced at him with toothless gums. When he saw the knife, however, he began to cower.  
  
He was a disgusting thing. He smelled like sewage.   
  
Dhacian closed his eyes and tried to bring the knife down on the man's neck.  
  
He couldn't do it. He couldn't kill him.   
  
It was true. He was soft. He was useless. He was a disgrace--  
  
"Orders are orders," Alda said, as she lunged for him--  
  
He brought the knife down, made a clean slitting motion. Blood burst out of the man's throat and spattered on Dhacian's clothing and face.  
  
He calmly wiped it away. "I'll need new clothes," he said. The crowd cheered.  
  
Afterwards he vomited up every last scrap of the delicious dinner.  
  
Two days later he got official word from the Empress that his probation was over. He was a full-fledged soldier now.  
  
\---  
  
Considering the six-month interval that he'd been out of commission, he was one of the fastest-advancing soldiers in history.  
  
In fact, he probably would have been breaking records. Except that someone else was breaking them before him.  
  
He felt nothing when he heard her name, now. He could eat just as heartily when holovids played. He didn't care.   
  
He didn't care.  
  
He didn't care.  
  
There was talk of her becoming the youngest general in history. Not yet, of course, but if her career proceeded at the pace she was already going--  
  
But he didn't care.   
  
Why should he?  
  
He didn't.  
  
So he ate and he worked and he waited, waited until he would finally be transferred back to New Stormrook, waited and didn't care.  
  
\---  
  
It took a bit more than a year. It had been a total of two years from his humiliating failure at the final exam.   
  
But finally, finally he received word that he was needed back in New Stormrook.  
  
As he packed his bags-- his greatly expanded wardrobe, his much increased supply of cash--- he thought of honor and pride and the Empress and opportunity and advancement and not once did he think of Alda.  
  
As he boarded the airship and waved goodbye to the crowd that had come to see him off-- it wasn't a ridiculously large crowd, but he did have quite a bit of a following-- he didn't think of her.  
  
In fact he was so utterly and totally not thinking of her, of her face, of her face when she saw him again, that it was a shock when he heard her name.  
  
"Alda Kims?!" someone said, incredulously. "That makes no sense!"  
  
"Well, read it for yourself, then--"  
  
He turned and saw a crewmember shoving a newspaper into the hands of another passenger.  
  
Probably the latest news of her great success. He fought the urge to roll his eyes.  
  
"I-- I don't understand," the passenger said. "She can't just have disappeared!"  
  
"I heard rumors that she's dead and they're covering it up," the crewmember said.  
  
"But she was going to be the guest speaker at the Morale Rally!"  
  
The creewmember gave a short laugh. "Well, she clearly isn't going to be anymore."  
  
"I'm sorry," Dhacian said, stepping up behind them. "May I see that?"  
  
They took in his appearnace at once-- uniform, lapel pin-- and stepped away immediately. "Here you go, sir," they said, and fled.  
  
\---  
  
He read the article-- a front page spread. He read the other, shorter article on the same topic. He read the editorial.  
  
He read them all, in fact, about a hundred times each, before he finally managed to fall asleep.  
  
That night, for the first time, he dreamed.  
  
He was in the practice room with Alda and he was watching her fight the marionette practice soldiers and he was realizing, for the very first time, that he was in love with her.  
  
No that was wrong that was wrong that was wrong.  
  
He was in the practice room with Alda and she was so beautiful and he was in love with her and it hurt he hurt why did it hurt oh right because his chest was ripped open and he was a bloody mess and he was dying.  
  
He was on the practice field with Alda and she said "sometimes I feel like no one understands me but you" as she stabbed him in the chest--  
  
in the chest--  
  
he was bleeding--  
  
They were sitting together in the corridor leaning over a single book and her hair was in his face except his chest was a bloody mess all over everything because he was dying because she had killed him because--  
  
This was all wrong all wrong all wrong--  
  
"You broke me!" he screamed. "you broke me, you broke me, I'm going to break you!"  
  
He was bleeding and he was stabbing her and she was bleeding bleeding bleeding and as her wound widened his closed--  
  
except it didn't, it just got bigger and bigger as her breaths came, slower, she was dying he was dying she wasdyinghewasdying.  
  
"I hate you I hate you I hate you," he said, he stabbed her, he burned her, he kissed her, he strangled her--  
  
\---  
  
He woke gasping in the middle of the night to absolute darkness.   
  
He stumbled to the bathroom-- he had a private room, the perks of privilege-- and then to a sink to gulp down a cup of water.  
  
He did not want to go to New Stormrook anymore. He did not want to go because the only reason he had ever wanted to go was to see her again.  
  
Not for the Empress. Away from her presence, her importance also managed to somehow fade. Thinking of disobeying her made his chest ache but he could have stayed in Old Stormrook and been fine, and instead he hadn't been fine because he needed to not be there because he needed--  
  
And he had refused to acknolwedge it, all along, because it was so ridiculous, and because he knew that it would make the Empress angry, and because--  
  
what would he have done if he saw her? Tried to kill her, maybe. No. She was important. They wouldn't have let him.   
  
Proved that he wasn't a nobody, for her to use and throw away. He wasn't a stepping stool. He was--  
  
He could make her respect him, he could make her lo--  
  
Stupid stupid stupid thought she  _killed_  you or at least tried to and you hate her you hate her you hate her.  
  
She was winning, all over again.   
  
He was letting her win.  
  
No, dammit, no, he wasn't going to let this change anything.  
  
She had no power over him.  
  
He was just as worthwhile without her around.  
  
He didn't care.   
  
He didn't care.  
  
He would just rise, and rise, and no one could stop him anymore. 


	3. Interlude

He fell.  
At this point his life should have flashed in front of his eyes.   
  
But there was no time here, just the single, endless, instant.   
  
So what he saw (endlessly, instantly) was her face, crumpled, as she cried-- but she never cried-- and what he heard (endlessly,instantly) was her scream--  
  
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[interlude: After she had decorated her new home with flowers and bright poisonous mushroom and rainbows and kittens and everything else she found beautiful, Chaska turned her attention to the question of occasionally getting to leave her new, beautiful home. Sunrises and waterfall were exquisitely lovely, but they weren't Corwin Elenthir.  
It took a rather long time for her to even start creating little rifts in her little world's time-space fabric. A very, very, very, very long time, actually, but luckily there wasn't actually such a thing as time here at all. So she worked for millenia-that-weren't, humming to herself. Eventually she was making them like little bubbles, floating away from her all dark and lovely. They had a tendency to pop with a frightening silence, though. She set about stabilizing them, making their nothingness be a bit more... [i]nothing[/i], and they formed dark gooey strings that burned through her fingers as she set about trying to weave them. Finally she had one all set up, a perfect net, and then to her dismay it slipped through her fingers and fell, down and down, into the deeper nothing below. She watched in dismay as it disappeared, and then with a little shrug and a smile she set back to work. She was very patient. She could start again.]  
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R and-- 


End file.
